Many kinds of board products have been made from plant fibers in the form of chips, slabs, strands, shreds, particles, sawdust, shavings, comminutions, and other fiber forms. Some of such fiber forms, referred to as wafers, are the intentional result or by-product of "fragmenting" logs cut from trees, and are used in composite structural members and various sheet-like panels. Such fragmenting is by waferizing or otherwise reducing such logs into small pieces. Other plant fibers, such as rinds of sugarcane or the like, sawdust or other non-wafer particles from trees, and other forms, have been contemplated for use in various composite boards, in particular, thin sheet-like panelling.
Such fiber materials are bound together using a variety of binders and forming methods to produce boards of various kinds. Commonly, such boards, including composite lumber, are used in applications where they are concealed from view in the final finished product, e.g., a building.
Long-standing problems or shortcomings of certain "manufactured" boards include their softness and that they are not substantially free of voids and do not have the smooth, relatively hard, substantially void-free surfaces required of furniture-grade lumber. Prior to the invention, ornamental building components and furniture (except furniture of veneered particle board) have used virgin pieces of wood, e.g., walnut, oak, cherry and the like.
Another problem with many of such boards is that their exposed surfaces are distinctly unattractive. They often have visual and/or physical imperfections such as voids, chips, knots or the like. The presence of significant voids is a very real problem in boards made with wafers, at least those made at typical board-making pressures. And even when the product is devoid of such imperfections, the aesthetic quality of the exposed surfaces are unacceptable for furniture, exposed ornamental construction and the like.
In the prior art there is a lack of composite lumber all the surfaces of which, including the flat main surfaces, the edge surfaces and the end surfaces, have appearances closely replicating the corresponding surfaces of natural lumber.
Yet another disadvantage is that, often, such boards tend to splinter when formed by bending. For that reason, they cannot readily be used in, for example, applications requiring bowed components.
Still another disadvantage is that such boards consume timber, albeit scraps and pieces of such timber which might otherwise go to waste. Timber is a precious resource that is replaceable only over years or decades, and deforestation problems are a principal global concern at the end of the twentieth century.
In summary, there is a clear need for non-timber hardwood-replacement lumber which has a high quality surface finish, satisfactory hardness, is substantially devoid of imperfections, can be bent to shapes, has a grain structure very closely simulating that of wood, and which also reduces deforestation concerns.